Technological Trends

Any discussion about the use of computers within the AEC industry would be incomplete without looking at long term technological trends and attempting to explain their potential impact on the future course of architectural and engineering practice. As you page through this article, you should be mindful that predictions about the future are extraordinarily difficult to get right – the greater the attempted specificity, the greater the likelihood of error. That’s why I have shied away from specific predictions about brand name products and focused instead on explaining general trends.

Readers should also be mindful that many of the predictions found in the article seem to contradict one another. That’s because competing market forces may be acting to drive technology in opposite directions simultaneously. New technology is often misunderstood and misrepresented and its development is not a linear process. Muddy explanations are commonplace and it is often impossible to foresee the consequences of an invention.

For the readers’ convenience, our forecast has been divided up into the following seven sections:

	Macro-Economic Trends Learn how macro-economic trends are likely to impact the AEC industry in the next 10 years. More…
	Hardware Trends Discover how advances in computer technology were expected to revolutionize architectural education and professional practice by the year 2005. More…
	Software Trends Learn how recent advances in software engineering are expected to transform Architectural practice in the next few years. More…
	The Internet Learn how the Internet will help design teams deliver better projects by changing the way they communicate and do business with one another. More…
	Quality Improvement Learn why the computer industry’s commitment to continuous improvement will likely result in dramatically increased consumer acceptance and trust. More…
	Telecommunications Trends Learn how recent advances in communication technology are expected to revolutionize the design process and improve project delivery. More…
	The Future(s) of Architectural Computing Learn how advances in computer hardware, software and networking were expected to revolutionize architectural practice by the turn of the century. More…

(Next Page)